


Lapis... Lance?

by CryTill5AM (BogDing)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ask to tag if needed!, dfgsjdfg, lapis lance au, my lance is a gem stuck on a mirror in the castle au, sbjdbjfh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11511846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BogDing/pseuds/CryTill5AM
Summary: Everyone froze, staring at the mirror, then the gem that had skidded a fair bit away from it. There was a moment of silence before a bright, blue light burst from the gem. It glowed, floating high up into the air above the paladins and Alteans, becoming brighter and brighter before the light seemed to snap together. A humanoid form shifted quickly into different features, faster than they could really count, before it seemed to settle on a certain form.





	1. Waterfall Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> me @ myself: don’t u fuckin dare is2g
> 
> also me @ myself-completely ignoring myself: gem au where lance is a lapis stuck in a mirror hidden away in the castle of lions and Blue chooses him but he’s stuck in a mirror haha

_It’s so cold._

_Cold and quiet, empty for so, so long._

_Endlessly silent and cold._

_Yearning, reaching, hoping to feel the warmth of the stars’ caressing touches._

_He’d been here for so long._

_Millennia._

_So long since he had last seen another being in this cold, empty place._

_It… burned, had nearly driven him mad after the first 3000 years._

_Yet now he was used to the solitude._

_An ache surrounds him. Oh, he was a cracked gem, last he remembered. What had awoken him after so long?_

_He could feel them. Others. After so long? He wanted to reach out to them. There was another… something, prodding at him, wrapping warmth and safety and comfort around him._

_Where was he?_

_The castle of lions. A gift that was given to the Alteans by the Galra. Stuck to a mirror as a well of wisdom, for any and all to ask him for his knowledge. The castle is thrumming now, awakening after so, so long._

_‘Who are you?’ He calls to the warmth that envelopes him desperately, soothing presence, feels like star shine and cosmic dust._

**‘I am the Blue Lion, my paladin.’**

_He remembers the paladins. Being long ago passing him around, asking him so many questions, leaving him dizzy, dizzy, dizzy. ‘Paladin?’_

**‘Yes. I have chosen you as the one who will fly me. Will you accept?’**

_Would he accept? Could he? Last he remembered he was stuck in a mirror. ‘Yes.’_

_It, she rumbled softly-purring, she was purring-images of strange beings flowed like thick honey into his consciousness._

**‘They will come for you soon, my paladin. Fear not.’**

_‘Then I will wait.’  
_

_The words hadn’t left him too soon when light spread through the room. There were people here, in this place with him. Sounds were muted and muffled._

_Being picked up after so long made him thrum. The face of one of the beings from the vision of Blue came before him. Warm, bright brown eyes filled with curiosity and awe as he was looked over by this man._

“Whoa, this is so cool!” _The man exclaimed, flipping him over quickly, large, warm fingers caressing over his cracked gem in a way that would have made his corporeal form shudder,_  “Aw man, looks like it’s pretty damaged… Maybe I can find some kind of glue to help fill in the cracks?”

_He doubted it. The only cure for a cracked gem were the tears of a Rose Quartz, and his information led him to believe that they were all gone._

“I’ll bring it with me to show the others.” _The yellow paladin mumbled, and he felt himself being placed among other broken and strange mechanics.  
_

_Soon. He would soon be released from the mirror that held him captive._

* * *

“Yo, check what I just found!” 

Pidge looked up from their laptop, brows furrowed confusedly as Hunk strode in with a big bright smile, carrying what looked like a tray full of odd gizmos and trinkets. The green paladin set aside their laptop, scooching over on the couch to make space for the bigger yellow paladin.

“Watcha got there?” Keith asked, tipping his head up from where he’d been cleaning his Bayard, Shiro sitting next to him comfortably as he read through his tablet. The black paladin glanced over briefly, before returning his attention back to what he’d been reading before. 

They’d been in space for nearly a month now, and their bond as paladins and friends had strengthened pretty amazingly-considering they didn’t have a Blue paladin yet. No matter who they brought before Blue, she rejected them, claiming to have already claimed her paladin the same day they’d arrived at the castle. They’d first considered that Allura or Coran had been chosen by Blue, but they’d both been rejected immediately when they’d stepped forth to her shield. It was starting to grate on everyone’s nerves at how she refused to even entertain other partners when the team went through such great efforts to find her a paladin. 

Blue hadn’t appreciated their frustration either.

Today was what the paladins had dubbed as a rest day: a day where there was no training, no fighting Galra, and absolutely _no_  looking for a blue paladin. 

Hunk smiled brightly, setting the various bits and bobs on the table in front of everyone, “Found some stuff when I was helping Coran clean the storage spaces on the ship! There’s lots of really cool and pretty stuff here!” He said, excitedly showing off something that vaguely looked like a twelve-sided Rubik’s cube. 

Pidge hummed, picking up a small robotic looking… toy? Turning it over to look at it from different angles, “Pretty neat. But it all looks super old and kinda…broken?”

“Yeah, I figured we could spend some downtime fixing this stuff! Or, at least, I can,” Hunk laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck, “I like to keep my hands busy when I’m relaxing, it helps me think.”

Keith frowned and lifted up a crystal… shield of some kind? “Uh… right… and Coran and Allura are cool with you taking this stuff?”

Hunk’s smile faltered slightly and he groaned, “I forgot to ask them…” he admitted, standing up and heading to lean out of the room to call out to Coran, who was just passing with Allura, “Hey, is it okay for me to fiddle around and fix this stuff I found in one of the storage rooms?”

Allura turned with a curious hum as Coran shrugged, “We’d have to see what exactly you plan on fiddling with. For all, you know it could be veeeeerrry dangerous, number two!” The mustached Altean hummed, both he and Allura moving past Hunk and into the room, looking over the pile of knickknacks that Hunk had grabbed from the room. Coran nodded after surveying the contents of the pile, letting out a satisfied laugh, “None of these objects are particularly important or harmful, it should be quite alright for you to fiddle around with them-”

“Oh, my!” Allura exclaimed, a bright smile lighting up her face as her eye caught something special, picking up what looked to be a very pretty and intricately detailed mirror. A large, cracked blue gem-a lapis lazuli- rested on the back, “I haven’t seen this old thing in years! Where did you find it Hunk?”

“Uh…” Hunk frowned, tilting his head in confusion, “One of the storage rooms. It was kinda glowing brightly when I turned on the lights. It’s a nice mirror, though. Too bad about the gem on the back.”

“It’s not just any mirror!” Allura exclaimed, turning the mirror so that the paladins and Coran could get a better look at it as well, beaming brightly, “This is a knowledge mirror! My father and the other paladins used to use it to find out information about anything and everything in the known universe at the time!” She frowned slightly and looked back down to the mirror, “Although, it might be fairly outdated now. It has been in this castle for over ten thousand years without anyone asking it any questions or offering it new bits of information.”

“How does it work?” Pidge piped up curiously, eyeing the mirror, glasses glinting in the light as they tilted their head. The thought of a mirror have any and all knowledge in the galaxy, even if it was slightly outdated now, was still a fascinating concept to think about. 

Allura hummed and looked up at Pidge excitedly, handing the mirror to the young green paladin eagerly, “You just need to hold it and ask it a question. If it knows the answer, it will tell you through images and, occasionally, sound!”

Pidge huffed and shook their head, passing the mirror back to Hunk, to tipped the mirror up to look at him and gave it a bright, if nervous, grin, “No thanks. I don’t think an outdated mirror would have any kind of information I’d be all that interested in at the moment.”

Allura pouted slightly at that, before turning her attention to Hunk eagerly. Hunk chuckled nervously and cleared his throat, looking into the mirror’s surface, “Uh, hi, mirror! My name’s Hunk, uhm…” he tried to wrack his brain for any question that he might want the answer to, “Uhm, do you have any information on Balmerra crystals?”

The mirror was silent for a long while and everyone was about to turn their attention to something else when it started to glow, images and people flashing quickly over its glossy surface as it gave Hunk the answer he sought. The yellow paladin continued to stare at the mirror in awe, grin growing bright and sunny. 

“Wow, that’s so-that was-you’re amazing!” He exclaimed, briefly forgetting that he was speaking to an inanimate object. The mirror seemed to pause and Keith snickered lightly. 

“I don’t think an inanimate object is going to be able to understand you, Hunk,” The yellow paladin blushed in embarrassment and Shiro chuckled lightly in response.

Everyone was shocked silent, “Thank-you!-Hunk.”

“Did… did the mirror just thank Hunk?” Pidge asked, staring at the mirror as if it had grown into some weird monstrosity. Sure, the words had been distorted, using different voices and phrases, using Hunk’s own introduction of the yellow paladin’s name, but it was very clearly a response to his praise.

Hunk gaped down at the mirror, frozen in disbelief. He didn’t even react as Keith snatched the mirror from him to stare down at the mirror in shock, “What the actual fu-”

“Language, Keith.” Shiro said sharply, turning to Allura who seemed to be getting paler by the second, “Is that a, uh, normal feature these mirrors are capable of, Princess?” 

Allura shook her head, eyeing the mirror warily as Keith continued to stare down at its quiet surface now, “No… I’ve never seen or heard of a knowledge mirror being able to respond in any way before…” she frowned, turning her attention to Keith, “Why don’t you ask it something, Keith. Perhaps it was just a fluke.”

Keith fumbled for a second, trying to come up with a question for the mirror to answer, “Uhh… can you show me a schematic of a Galra warship?”

The glossy surface didn’t react for a long time, and Keith felt a growing frustration as it stayed silent. It lit up again suddenly, giving a very detailed image-blueprints- of various Galra ships from long ago. Keith eyed the mirror for a moment, “Uh… thanks, I guess?” He finally said, awkwardly tapping on the gem that was glued to the back.

He nearly dropped the mirror as it blared out the castle’s alarm system, shoving it instead towards the shocked Shiro, who fumbled with it for a moment before managing to hold it steadily. It quieted after a second and images started flashing over the surface again, starting with that of a small child that looked a lot like a tiny version of Allura crying and holding her scraped knee, “Ow!” moving onto several quickly flittering images afterward, “That hurt-you!-big meatheaded-Keith.”

Seeing his own face saying Keith’s name in a strange mirror was very… bizarre, for Shiro. He’d seen so many strange things while flying around in space but never had he seen a talking and conscious mirror before. Keith gaped for a few moment, a glare flashing over his face quickly after, “Hey! I’m not meatheaded!” He snapped irritably, reaching over to take the mirror back, only to have Shiro lean it away from him, eyeing the red paladin warily.

“Maybe it’s best if you didn’t provoke the all-seeing mirror, Keith,” Shiro said firmly and Keith huffed, flopping back to sit on the couch properly once more. Shiro turned his attention back to the mirror and cleared his throat awkwardly, “Uh… how did Keith hurt you? Why are you capable of responding to us?”

The mirror paused before one image lit up on its surface: that of the cracked gem on the back. Shiro frowned and turned the mirror over, eyeing the large lapis lazuli gem curiously. One large crack seemed to almost split it down the middle. Something in the back of Shiro’s mind itched with the want to break the gem off of the back of the mirror, which made the black paladin recoil from it, holding it out uncomfortably away from him.

“How fascinating!” Allura exclaimed, clapping her hands together and staring at the mirror in awe, eyes becoming wide and weirdly sparkly, “This is simply unique! I’ve never seen or heard of a knowledge mirror capable of communicating with the ones who would ask it questions! We simply must find out more, perhaps we can even store information on the Galra within it-”

The mirror blared the castle alarm again, lighting up and showing an image of a pouting baby Allura yelling “No!” over and over again. Pidge grabbed the mirror from Shiro and yelped as they felt the mirror basically zap them. It was almost as if the mirror was angry and anxious, lashing out at them from the suggestion of being used as a storage device.

Hunk lunged for the mirror, barely catching it before it hit the ground, hoping to prevent it from being damaged any more than it already was. In his panic, the yellow paladin stroked the mirror’s edges in what he hoped was a soothing fashion, trying to calm it down to stop it from making any more noise, “Hey, hey, it’s alright, please calm down! Allura didn’t mean it, we won’t use you for storing Galra information if you don’t want that, I mean, it’s fine, there’s no need for all this noise, okay?” He babbled, which seemed to put the mirror back at ease, the continuous stream of pouty ‘no’s’ coming to an abrupt halt. 

The paladins stared at the mirror for long moments, waiting for it to perhaps explain its sudden temper tantrum. The glossy surface buzzed back to life, showing an image of the lions, standing all together, before zooming in on the Blue Lion, “Blue.” The image was followed by that of the cracked gem stuck to the back with the mirror allowing Alfor’s voice to blast through with the word “Paladin”, before switching back to the Blue Lion, repeating the word ‘blue’ and ‘paladin’ continuously now instead. 

Hunk looked up in a panic to Allura, hoping that she might have some clue as to what was going on, “Any idea what it’s trying to tell us?”

Allura shook her head, brow furrowed in confusion, “I have no idea! The mirror being able to respond and create its own conversation is new enough on its own!”

Keith frowned as he eyed the mirror, “It almost looks like it’s trying to tell us that it’s supposed to be the blue paladin… something about that gem is the key to what it wants.”

Pidge huffed and grabbed the mirror from Hunk, turning it over so that the gem was on display, “Well, let’s get the gem off then!”

“Hold on, Pidge, we don’t have any way to tell what’ll happen if we do! It could be a trap,” Shiro admonished, taking the mirror away from Pidge, only to have it taken away by Keith, the red paladin flipping off the couch and away from Shiro’s grasp as the black paladin tried to make a grab for the mirror again, “Keith!”

“We need to find out what the hell this mirror wants, Shiro! And the only way to do that is through the gem!” Keith responded with a scowl, holding the mirror as best he could away from Shiro, who tried to use his superior height to snatch the mirror from Keith again. Keith glanced around before chucking the mirror back at Hunk, “Catch, Hunk!”

The yellow paladin squeaked, trying to catch the mirror, only for it to slip from between his fingers and fall to the ground, the gem snapping off the back with a loud snap.

Everyone froze, staring at the mirror, then the gem that had skidded a fair bit away from it. There was a moment of silence before a bright, blue light burst from the gem. It glowed, floating high up in the air above the paladins and Alteans, becoming brighter and brighter before the light seemed to snap together. A humanoid form shifted quickly into different features, faster than they could really count, before it seemed to settle on a certain form.

A being clothed in blue cloth floated to the floor. It seemed to be wearing some sort of long dark blue skirt-dress but slit all the ways up on both sides of the legs, showing the navy blue tights that hid under it. A bright aqua-blue cloth seemed to act as some sort of belt around the waist, holding it tightly to the body of the being so that it draped over its legs elegantly. It-he, the features were definitively masculine in appearance, though that did not give a true indication of the being’s gender- was barefoot, coming to stand comfortably on the balls of his feet. Brown hair fluffed out from the top of his head, tan skin seeming to glow unnaturally in the lights of the castle-ship as he stood there, eyes still shut and body barely slumped over. The gem lay securely hidden under his slim-fingered tan hands, located on his abdomen, where his bellybutton would be if he was human. 

Slowly, lethargically, he lifted his head and opened his eyes, which brought a veritable flood of water cascading down his soft looking cheeks. The other people sucked in a surprised, horrified breath as stat-icky-blue eyes focused blearily on them. There was no iris, no pupil, just shifting blues like that of a static television in different shades of blues stared at them. 

“Who the fuck are you?!” Pidge was the first to break the silence with a yelp, causing the being to turn his waterfall eyes on them. Pidge shifted uncomfortably under its - his gaze.

He seemed to pause, considering for a moment, standing at attention before bowing low to the paladins and Alteans before him. “I am Lapis Lazuli, cut LAN-233860, terraformation expert under her illustrious Blue Diamond’s authority on planet LXZ-3248,” He paused, before standing and shooting the shocked group before him a wink-sending even more water cascading from his eyes and onto the floor, a puddle slowly but surely forming under his feet- and a grin.

“But you can just call me Lance.”


	2. You Knew Who I Was!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But the king was dead, had been for millennia, and Lance’s anger had no outlet. It took too much energy to be consistently angry at the dead.
> 
> Then… the ship had begun to act oddly.

It had been well over a month since the mirror incident.

Lance had settled into the rhythm of the ship, a new and strange addition to their life aboard as the humans and Alteans wandered through the universe. The fact that he had apparently been chosen by the Blue Lion as her pilot only made welcoming him easier.

There were still some… difficulties, however.

When Lance had first come out of the mirror gem, the team could only stare in both wonder and awe as the young man stood up from his rather mocking bow. How else were they supposed to react? It was so very bizarre to be facing someone who had practically stepped out of a mirror to be a living, breathing being here in front of them. The Lapis, Lance as he’d said, let his eyes roam over the paladins’ faces curiously

Holy shit, there was an  _actual person_  stuck in that mirror and they’d been treating it like some weird space television. 

They’d yelled, asking him rapid-fire questions that had made the cocky grin on the gem-persons face waver, brow furrowed. The water from his eyes had been making a larger pile as he continued to stand there. His distress was only obvious through the gushing of the water from his eyes as he held his hands out to them placatingly.

_“How long were you in that mirror?!”  
_

_“Longer than ten thousand years. I knew the original paladins, though not in the physical.”_

They’d spent well over an hour interrogating Lance, asking him so many questions that he’d been dizzy afterward, the concentration he used to try and hold his form together wavering. They’d only stopped once one of his arms had drooped to the ground, staring at it in horror as the elongated appendage twitched.

_“Why does your arm do that?”  
_

_“Because my gem is damaged.”  
_

_“Is there any way to fix it?”  
_

_“Unless you have access to the waters of Homeworld or the tears of a Rose Quartz, then no.”_

_“We’ll find a way!”  
_

_“I don’t doubt you’d try.”  
_

The paladins had been worried, hands reaching out and hovering near him. It was the princess who had tried to touch him, only to have him jerk violently away from her touch. 

_“Why do you avoid touch?”  
_

_“Because my skin is sensitive.”_

A lie, but they couldn’t exactly doubt his words, considering they knew nothing of gem kind. They’d asked him many questions, some delving into the aspects of his physical form, some of his abilities, some into Homeworld and the gems that inhabited it.

_“What is this Homeworld you talk about?”  
_

_“It is the original world from whence my species came.”  
_

_“Is there any way to get there?”  
_

_“Only if you have the clearance, and while I do, I was… removed from the registry.”  
_

_“Why?”_

_“I’d rather not talk about it.”_

_There was a pause, awkward and uncomfortable, before Pidge cleared their throat and moved onto the next question, their eyes glued to Lance’s gem._

_“What can gems do?”  
_

_“It depends on the type of gem you are. However, we are all capable of similar actions and attributes, such as fusion.”  
_

_“What is fusion?”  
_

_“Two or more gems coming together to form a bigger version of themselves-according to Homeworld.”  
_

_“And according to you?”  
_

_“I’d rather not speak of it.”  
_

Lance sighed to himself, watching his legs listlessly through his waterfall eyes. He was getting worse. His physical form took a toll on his mental and physical health. Various parts of himself were stretching or shrinking. The crack in his gem was widening with each yawning day that passed. He slept more than he should, considering gems don’t actually need sleep all that much, and he left puddles of water in his wake.

_“I believe we do have something that might help in healing your gem!”  
_

_“The pods are not equipped to heal cracked gems.”  
_

_“My father left something else! I believe it was a potion of regeneration. If we find it, we may be able to heal you!”_

Lance’s chest burned. Anger swirled in his belly as he thought of the Altean King. He’d known. Known the moment he’d held the mirror that there was more to Lance than the Galra who had gifted it to the King had mentioned. And he’d done nothing. 

But the king was dead, had been for millennia, and Lance’s anger had no outlet. It took too much energy to be consistently angry at the dead.

Then… the ship had begun to act oddly.

* * *

Lance had been resting within Blue, her soothing presence a comfort, similar to that of the waters from the world he’d been born from. It hadn’t been a surprise to Lance that the princess hadn’t been able to find the healing potion that would inevitably heal his gem. He’d been disappointed, surely, but he’d understood. The castle was large and had too many storage spaces to truly check where the potion was. It didn’t mean she’d given up, as she’d set course in the directions Lance had hesitantly given her.

If all went well, they’d reach Homeworld within the week. Lance felt both nauseous and excited at the idea. Perhaps he would be able to wade within the springs of his home planet, visit his sisters, visit hid diamond!

He didn’t know exactly what had happened, but Blue had gone tense, a deep growl rumbling through his mind. Lance, instinctively, tensed as well. If Blue was growling, that meant there was something wrong. If there was something wrong, Lance most probably would not be able to protect himself; there was no water besides that which came from himself aboard the ship that he could try to use as a weapon. 

Lance sent Blue soothing thoughts, heading to the cockpit exit and getting out of his Lion. He tensed, it was too quiet, the air too still.  _Where are the others?_  He thought to himself, exiting the hangars and wandering the halls. At this time in the day, Shiro and Keith would be sparring one another, Pidge would be tinkering around in the vents, Hunk would be in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal [though Lance never ate, he had no need for it and it felt… strange] and Coran along with Allura would be going over the data they have in the castle.

So why was everything so silent?

Lance paused. He thought he’d heard footsteps a few feet to his right. Turning, he narrowed his eyes as he saw Allura, walking as if in a daze into a room close by. If Lance remembered the layout of the castle correctly, that was a simulation training room. Why would Allura be going there?

Curiously, the gem followed the princess. They weren’t close, Lance was still tiptoeing nervously around the other carbon-based life forms as they did the same to him, trying to find a common ground with which to work together, but he did care for them. They had freed him from the mirror without asking too much of him, simply wanting him to become the true paladin of the Blue Lion. He had no reason to want to see them hurt.

So he followed the princess. If she knew anything that was happening, he should follow her. Walking into the room, Lance sucked in a shocked breath. His blue eyes wandered over fields and fields full of juniberry blossoms. The anxiety crawling in his gut doubled, and Lance cautiously walked through the fields, eyes wide and watching everything cautiously.

He soon came across Allura, sitting in the fields and smiling wistfully at the blooms. The worry and fear that had been coursing through Lance subsided somewhat, and he paused to watch the princess for a bit. She didn’t seem to even feel his presence as he came to stand before her, something that made his gut clench and twist, “Allura, what are you doing in here?”

The princess turned her gaze lazily to Lance, a happy grin coming over her face as she watched him stand there, surrounded by holographic flowers. Water puddled beneath him the longer he stood there, eyeing her warily as she gestured for him to sit beside her. Her bright eyes were shining with such joy that Lance hesitated in breaking the illusion.

“Lance! Do you see this! There is an entire field of juniberry blossoms here! They were the flowers of Altea and they are here!” She called out, her eyes looking a bit behind him suddenly as her breath hitched, tears coming to her eyes, “Father…?”

“Hello Allura,” A deep voice, one Lance had thought he would never hear again, came from behind him, and the gem whipped around. There he was, face to face with the dead king of a dead world. Lance felt it, the fury crashing within him and twisting him up inside, the water beneath him coiling up his legs as he stood, frozen, staring at Alfor.

Allura ran past him and into her father’s arm, a cry of joy leaving her. Water rushed by Lance’s ears and he felt as if his entire body was boiling-too hot then too cold all at once. They seemed to be lost in their own little world and Lance felt a flash of rage course through him. This holographic was not the king, but all the pain and rage of millennia of loneliness and fear washed over him. 

“You,” Lance spat, Allura and Alfor’s holograph turning towards him in shock at the vehemence in Lance’s throat. Allura’s breath caught, watching in horror as Lance’s eyes glowed a deep blue color, the water falling from his eyes continuously swirling around him in a blaze of power, “You knew I was in there, and you didn’t do anything!”

Lance snarled, the water coming together to form a large fist, reaching forwards and smashing over Alfor’s holograph, accidentally knocking Allura to the side. The princess let out a shout of surprise, unable to get close to the two forms as water seemed to surround them. She could make them out clearly, the numb shock on Alfor’s face as he lay there placidly, Lance stalking over to him, his voice ringing through the room. The simulated flowers seemed to wilt and flicker, the fields disappearing and reappearing in intervals.

Allura reached over to the emergency control panel, blearily calling all others to this room, her eyes locked on the two in the midst of an ocean of water. She didn’t pay attention to the door opening, allowing the battered and bruised forms of the Paladins into the room. They all froze, gasping, seeing Lance use the water that had been crushing Alfor’s hologram to lift him up and slam him back into the floor of the room harshly.

“Did you even wonder who I used to be?!” Lance’s voice rang out, grief and rage turning it into a loud wail as Alfor just seemed to watch him quietly, calmly, as if he weren’t affected at all by the gem’s anger. Lance gritted his teeth and batted Alfor mercilessly, sending the hologram into the barrier, ignoring the cries to stop from his teammates and Allura’s yelled orders. 

Lance breathed deeply, his eyes glowing brighter, movements becoming sharp and precise. He could feel all the turmoil from millennia of silence and loneliness battle against his own common sense. It didn’t matter if this form of the king was only a hologram. It didn’t matter that Alfor was not the only one responsible for Lance’s capture. Lance was too blinded by his own swirling emotions to truly allow any form of logical thinking to wash over him.

“My name is Lance and you can’t keep me  _prisoner here anymore_!” Lance shouted though it came out more like a wail, tossing Alfor’s hologram so hard that it broke through the water barrier. Lance didn’t even care anymore, too overcome with his grief now as he fell to the floor, kneeling among the swirling, jagged water around him. He sobbed, clutching himself in agony, “Did you even care?!” he called out harshly, eyes shutting tightly as the water froze up, becoming ice to encase him even as the paladins ran towards him.

The ice that had formed around him exploded into shards, so small they looked like glitter. Lance continued to sit there, crying deeply, shuddering and shaking in the middle of the ice that rained around him. The team, hesitantly, stepped towards him, slowly coming to sit at his side, even as Allura and Coran rushed over to the damaged hologram, quickly exiting with the fake Alfor from the room. Hunk was the first to reach out, slowly wrapping an arm around Lance, who crumbled into his side, wailing loudly as the dam finally burst. Shiro and Keith followed soon after, Pidge curling up in his lap as the other two men wound themselves around the crying blue paladin.

They were silent, offering wordless comfort to their teammate, who could only continue to shake and cry. Lance felt so tired, so ancient and exhausted, but… not alone. He took their comfort greedily, lapped it up and helped patch some of the wounds that had been left upon him from his time in the mirror. 

“Did you even  _care_  about who I used to be?” They could only hold him tighter as he managed to choke out those words, their hearts and minds reaching out to him. For the first time, the paladins were able to connect with their gem teammate, to offer him the comfort and mental reassurance that they were there, they were not going to leave.

**Author's Note:**

> AMAZING ART DONE BY HONEYBUNNY2488 ON TUMBLR ITS AMAZING??? IM CRYING??? GO CHECK IT OUT!  
> https://honeybunny2488.tumblr.com/post/163142964083/o-h  
> https://honeybunny2488.tumblr.com/post/163150345078/more-doodles-of-lapislance-because-im-obsessed


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